The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1887-10-21
OUT OF THE FRYING-PBN.

W say we uO HOt i've There now, only
those who nave had experience of that
place can imagine how horrible it is.
Fancy a great big city with between
two aud three thousands inhabitants all de-
voted to wool-living by it and forit, talk
ing, dreaming and thinking nothing but
wool; with hundreds of tall chimnies from
the mills, all pouring forth volumes Of
smoke and all making cloth, or shoddy,
or something of that kind, as fast as they
can; and wita all this, not a ghost of a
sheep to be seen unless one goes miles out
on the moors, and even then the air is
SO full of smoke that the poor dears are
quite black and grimy and haven't a clean
back among them; SO different from the
Improved Leicesters" my father breeds
on his farm in Devonshire, who have
feeces as white as snow, and who look
perfectly sweet when they are washed and
started off to the Bath and West of
England Show with blue ribbons round
their necks.
Think what Bradham was to mel used
as I had been all my life to the refined
society of a Cathedral town; for | can
assure you that the inhabitants Of Brad
ham are not charming; they are mostly
very rich, and live in great houses with
hosts of servants, the women dress very
gorgeously and the men have a taste for
diamond studs and large watch chains;
they have, with few exceptions, risen from
the very lowest classes, and are not nice
in their prosperity, but bumptious and vul-
gar, and rather contemptuous toward
those who are not as wealthy as they are.
When Bently bought a practice there
every one seemed to think that it would
be a good thing, that it was a fine open
ing, and that we should get on well; and
in the end their conjectures proved true,
though not at all in the way they imagin-
ed.
| was really very miserable at Bradham
for two years, for | could not get on with
the people, and of course a doctors wife
ought to be on good terms with every
body. The only person | cared for at all
was Lizzie Dacres. She and her mother
lived in a little house near 70 us; they
were not at all well off, and Lizzie did
china painting. She and | got very friend
ly, ard we spenta good deal of time to-
gether.
Just at first the practice seemed a good
one, and thon it began steadily to fall off.
Whether it was that people did not like
Bently, OF thought him too young, can
not tell; but a great many who had been
his predecessors patients never sent for
him at all, but employed some one else,
and he grew very melancholy over it.
I had no fortune of my own, and he had
only what he earned, as he had invested
all his money in this affair, so that if it
failed it would be a very black lookout
for us. He did not like to put down his
carriage and horse, for it looks 50 bad for
a doctor to have to retrench, people inya-
riably say he does not succeed because he
is incapable; SO then we were living far
beyond our means and getting into debt.
1t was very unpleasant, and | was al
ways reproaching myself, for fancied it
was partly my fault, Every n used to
tell us, ''the late mans wife" had made
his practice for him.
I used so sit and think and think what
Mrs. Moxon could nave done, and how l
could possibly make Bently's practice!
I heard ola doctors wife once, who gave
u supper and colored all the ~jellies on the
table with some pink stuff she found in
the surgery, and the next day every one
was so violently i'll that her husband
could not go to bed for three nights, but
had to spend all his time ministering to his
~ex-guests.
knew that Mrs. Moxon used to give
swell dinner-parties, and | used to wonder
if she artfully poisoned the entrees, and,
if so, what she did it with.
One day Bently came in looking rather
less blue than usual
'Madge,'' he said, 81 have got a nice
new p. I. 1--WE use to call the patients
P. T's) and who do you think it is?"
could not guess, so at last he had to
tell me-Mr. Jerry Winterbottom, of Bar
r~owclough.
6fr. Jerry W~interbottom was
ly rich, and very influential, for besides
being a halloween he had a great deal of
land and house property. knew him and
his wife quite well by sight; they were
both very large, and people always spoke
OF them as "a fine couplc'-in appearance,
at least, they were very imposing. They
had the biggest horses and the tallest foot
men in Bradham, and only one child TO
leave everything to.
Young jerry" as he was always
called, was about twenty-four, and quite
different from his parents. He was small
and slight and delicate, with deep-set eyes
that were never still, but always glancing
nervously about.
His father and mother were devoted to
him, but I don't think they understood
him in the least; they were always trying
to make him as pretentious as themselves,
and push him forward, when all he want
ed was to be left in peace in the back
ground.
lie might have been very happy, for he
loved books, music and painting, and had
money to indulge his tastes in all three;
~ NJ. W;,torhott,n III not appr,va of